He knew she hadn’t recognised him, that sort of girl never looked twice at someone like him. Even though she had humiliated him the other day she still didn’t recognise Kyle as the freshman who had spilled his drink on her. She had been enjoying the hair transformation he had given her way too much so Kyle thought he’d better speed things up. Even though he’d gotten a few well placed punches from half the football team afterwards it was worth the pain to see her insult him so many times and boost her growth so much. He looked at his watch, it should be down to the floor by now.
His test case was going perfectly and he was about to really ramp things up. When his grandmother had given him the curse on her death bed she had told him about what she and her friends had done with it way back when. All she would say was that they had all sorts of fun, but trusted each other and all ended up back to normal. Except for one girl. Kyle’s grandmother wouldn’t say what had happened to her, but he knew it must have been something really bad.
When she’d passed the curse on to him she had put a compulsion on him. She had told him to choose Dare, and not really believing her crazy story, he had. She’d then dared him to only use the curse to do nice things for people. Even though what he’d done to Jenn wasn’t exactly nice, its purpose was to make her nicer person by penalising her every time she put others down, so his grandmother’s dare seemed to refer more to the outcome than the actual effect of his curse.
Still, Kyle had a few uses for the curse. He’d found out from his transform with Jenn that you could keep adding extra points on to a command to specify certain outcomes and the curse seemed to know when you’d finished. He decided to go to study hall and try it out.
When he opened the door, the only person there was a senior girl in the corner, quietly crying into a history book. He recognised her as Rachael, though he’d barely spoken to her before but he went over to her now.
“Hey, are you alright?” he asked.
“Just go away, I know I’m ugly, you don’t have to tell me as well.” She sobbed
“I wouldn’t call you that, why don’t you tell me about it?” he pulled the book away and looked at her. She was plain and a little overweight and she wore glasses, but he wouldn’t have considered her ugly.
“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?” Not what Kyle had hoped for, but it was better than nothing.
“If that’s what you want, then yeah, I’ll go.”
“Fine. I was just sitting in class earlier today when Jennifer Smith yelled out. The teacher asked her what was the matter, she said I was ugly. That’s all, I didn’t do anything to her, she just insulted me for no reason. She’s such a bitch!” Rachael seemed shocked at her own outburst and buried her head in her book again.
“Well, that was really nasty of her, but I don’t think she’ll be doing it again. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re ugly at all.” She lowered the book and looked up at him.
“You…You don’t?” she whispered.
“No, and I’ll tell you what else. Transform or Dare?” he said the curse under his breath so she barely heard him and besides, she was too shocked at his words to notice. The minute passed.
“Okay,” he said to the bewildered girl. “For your transformation, you seem really nice, but extremely shy, so you will slowly become more and more attractive until you have the confidence to ask a guy out.” She was speechless, he didn’t think she was really comprehending what he was saying, but it didn’t matter. “And for your dare, I dare you to forget that I ever used the curse on you. Also, you will say it back to me immediately and then dare me to leave the room.”
“Transform or Dare?” Rachael said quietly
“Dare.” Replied Kyle.
“I dare you to leave the room.” And with that she came out of her trance and looked at him again.
“Hey, I have to go now so I’ll see you later. It was nice talking to you, I hope you feel better soon, you seem like a really nice person.” He said looking over his shoulder as his feet carried him towards the door. She smiled weakly and nodded as he left. She remembered their conversation and his kind words, but nothing else.